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    <div class="article">
        <div class="titlepage">
            <div>
                <div>
                    <h2 class="title">How To Become A Hacker</h2>
                </div>
            </div>
            <hr />
        </div>
        <div class="toc">
            <dl class="toc">
                <dt>
                    <span class="sect1">
                        <a href="#why_this">Why This Document?</a>
                    </span>
                </dt>
                <dt>
                    <span class="sect1">
                        <a href="#what_is">What Is a Hacker?</a>
                    </span>
                </dt>
                <dt>
                    <span class="sect1">
                        <a href="#attitude">The Hacker Attitude</a>
                    </span>
                </dt>
                <dd>
                    <dl>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#believe1">1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#believe2">2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#believe3">3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#believe4">4. Freedom is good.</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#believe5">5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                    </dl>
                </dd>
                <dt>
                    <span class="sect1">
                        <a href="#basic_skills">Basic Hacking Skills</a>
                    </span>
                </dt>
                <dd>
                    <dl>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#skills1">1. Learn how to program.</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#skills2">2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#skills3">3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#skills4">4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                    </dl>
                </dd>
                <dt>
                    <span class="sect1">
                        <a href="#status">Status in the Hacker Culture</a>
                    </span>
                </dt>
                <dd>
                    <dl>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#respect1">1. Write open-source software</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#respect2">2. Help test and debug open-source software</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#respect3">3. Publish useful information</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#respect4">4. Help keep the infrastructure working</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                        <dt>
                            <span class="sect2">
                                <a href="#respect5">5. Serve the hacker culture itself</a>
                            </span>
                        </dt>
                    </dl>
                </dd>
                <dt>
                    <span class="sect1">
                        <a href="#nerd_connection">The Hacker/Nerd Connection</a>
                    </span>
                </dt>
                <dt>
                    <span class="sect1">
                        <a href="#style">Points For Style</a>
                    </span>
                </dt>
                <dt>
                    <span class="sect1">
                        <a href="#history">Historical Note: Hacking, Open Source, and Free Software</a>
                    </span>
                </dt>
                <dt>
                    <span class="sect1">
                        <a href="#resources">Other Resources</a>
                    </span>
                </dt>
                <dt>
                    <span class="sect1">
                        <a href="#FAQ">Frequently Asked Questions</a>
                    </span>
                </dt>
            </dl>
        </div>
        <div class="sect1">
            <div class="titlepage">
                <div>
                    <div>
                        <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
                            <a id="why_this"></a>Why This Document?</h2>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <p>As editor of the
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.catb.org/jargon" target="_top">Jargon File
                </a> and author of a few other well-known documents of similar nature, I often get email requests from enthusiastic
                network newbies asking (in effect) "how can I learn to be a wizardly hacker?". Back in 1996 I noticed that
                there didn't seem to be any other FAQs or web documents that addressed this vital question, so I started
                this one. A lot of hackers now consider it definitive, and I suppose that means it is. Still, I don't claim
                to be the exclusive authority on this topic; if you don't like what you read here, write your own.</p>
            <p>If you are reading a snapshot of this document offline, the current version lives at
                <a class="ulink" href="http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html" target="_top">
                    http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html</a>.</p>
            <p>Note: there is a list of
                <a class="link" href="#FAQ" title="Frequently Asked Questions">Frequently Asked Questions
                </a> at the end of this document. Please read these—twice—before mailing me any questions about this document.
            </p>
            <p>Numerous translations of this document are available:
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.abdulibrahim.com/%D9%83%D9%8A%D9%81-%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A8%D8%AD-%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%83%D8%B1/"
                    target="_top">Arabic</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://moneyaisle.com/worldwide/how-to-become-a-hacker-be" target="_top">Belorussian</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://weknowyourdreams.com/questions.html" target="_top">Bulgarian</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://zer4tul.github.io/docs/hacker-howto.html#hacker-howto" target="_top">Chinese</a>,
                <a class="ulink" href="http://scientificachievements.com/jak-se-stat-hackerem/" target="_top">Czech</a>.
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.olemichaelsen.dk/hacker-howto.html" target="_top">Danish</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="https://tkkrlab.nl/wiki/Hoe_word_ik_een_hacker" target="_top">Dutch</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.kakupesa.net/hacker/" target="_top">Estonian</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://thomasgil.com/hacker.html" target="_top">French</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.linuxtaskforce.de/hacker-howto-ger.html" target="_top">German</a>,
                <a class="ulink" href="https://sophron.latthi.com/hacker-howto-gr.html" target="_top">Greek</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.forallworld.com/hogyan-valhat-egy-hacker/" target="_top">Hungarian</a>,
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.victorfleur.com/documents/hacker.html" target="_top">Italian</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9A_%D7%9C%D7%94%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%94%D7%90%D7%A7%D7%A8"
                    target="_top">Hebrew</a>,
                <a class="ulink" href="http://cruel.org/freeware/hacker.html" target="_top">Japanese</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://rtfb.lt/hacker-howto-lt.html" target="_top">Lithuanian</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://stian.atlantiscrew.net/doc/hacker-howto.html" target="_top">Norwegian</a>,
                <a class="ulink" href="http://ashiyane.org/forums/showthread.php?t=20570" target="_top">Persian</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://michalp.net/blog/posts/hacker-howto" target="_top">Polish</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://jvdm.sdf.org/pt/raquer-howto" target="_top">Portuguese (Brazilian)
                </a>,
                <a class="ulink" href="http://garaj.xhost.ro/hacker-howto/hacker-howto.ro.htm" target="_top">Romanian</a>
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.sindominio.net/biblioweb/telematica/hacker-como.html" target="_top">Spanish</a>,
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.belgeler.org/howto/hacker-howto/hacker-howto.html" target="_top">Turkish</a>, and
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www1.tripnet.se/~mly/open/faqs/hacker-howto.se.html" target="_top">Swedish</a>. Note that since this document changes occasionally, they may be out of date to varying degrees.
            </p>
            <p>The five-dots-in-nine-squares diagram that decorates this document is called a
                <span class="emphasis">
                    <em>glider</em>
                </span>. It is a simple pattern with some surprising properties in a mathematical simulation called
                <a class="ulink" href="http://dmoz.org/Computers/Artificial_Life/Cellular_Automata/" target="_top">Life</a>
                that has fascinated hackers for many years. I think it makes a good visual emblem for what hackers are like — abstract, at
                first a bit mysterious-seeming, but a gateway to a whole world with an intricate logic of its own. Read more
                about the glider emblem
                <a class="ulink" href="/~esr/hacker-emblem/" target="_top">here</a>.</p>
            <p>If you find this document valuable, please
                <a class="ulink" href="http://patreon.com/esr" target="_top">support me on Patreon</a>. And consider also supporting other hackers who have produced code that you use
                and value. Lots of small but continuing donations add up quickly, and can free the people who have given
                you gifts of their labor to create more value.</p>
        </div>
        <div class="sect1">
            <div class="titlepage">
                <div>
                    <div>
                        <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
                            <a id="what_is"></a>What Is a Hacker?</h2>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <p>The
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.catb.org/jargon" target="_top">Jargon File
                </a> contains a bunch of definitions of the term ‘hacker’, most having to do with technical adeptness and
                a delight in solving problems and overcoming limits. If you want to know how to
                <span class="emphasis">
                    <em>become</em>
                </span> a hacker, though, only two are really relevant.
            </p>
            <p>There is a community, a shared culture, of expert programmers and networking wizards that traces its history
                back through decades to the first time-sharing minicomputers and the earliest ARPAnet experiments. The members
                of this culture originated the term ‘hacker’. Hackers built the Internet. Hackers made the Unix operating
                system what it is today. Hackers make the World Wide Web work. If you are part of this culture, if you have
                contributed to it and other people in it know who you are and call you a hacker, you're a hacker.</p>
            <p>The hacker mind-set is not confined to this software-hacker culture. There are people who apply the hacker attitude
                to other things, like electronics or music — actually, you can find it at the highest levels of any science
                or art. Software hackers recognize these kindred spirits elsewhere and may call them ‘hackers’ too — and
                some claim that the hacker nature is really independent of the particular medium the hacker works in. But
                in the rest of this document we will focus on the skills and attitudes of software hackers, and the traditions
                of the shared culture that originated the term ‘hacker’.</p>
            <p>There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren't. These are people (mainly adolescent
                males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers and phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these
                people ‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them. Real hackers mostly think crackers are lazy, irresponsible,
                and not very bright, and object that being able to break security doesn't make you a hacker any more than
                being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer. Unfortunately, many journalists and writers
                have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker’ to describe crackers; this irritates real hackers no end.</p>
            <p>The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them.</p>
            <p>If you want to be a hacker, keep reading. If you want to be a cracker, go read the
                <a class="ulink" href="news:alt.2600" target="_top">alt.2600</a> newsgroup and get ready to do five to ten in the slammer after finding out you aren't as smart
                as you think you are. And that's all I'm going to say about crackers.
            </p>
        </div>
        <div class="sect1">
            <div class="titlepage">
                <div>
                    <div>
                        <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
                            <a id="attitude"></a>The Hacker Attitude</h2>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <div class="toc">
                <dl class="toc">
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#believe1">1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#believe2">2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#believe3">3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#believe4">4. Freedom is good.</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#believe5">5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                </dl>
            </div>
            <p>Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help. To be accepted
                as a hacker, you have to behave as though you have this kind of attitude yourself. And to behave as though
                you have the attitude, you have to really believe the attitude.
            </p>
            <p>But if you think of cultivating hacker attitudes as just a way to gain acceptance in the culture, you'll miss
                the point. Becoming the kind of person who believes these things is important for
                <span class="emphasis">
                    <em>you</em>
                </span> — for helping you learn and keeping you motivated. As with all creative arts, the most effective way to become
                a master is to imitate the mind-set of masters — not just intellectually but emotionally as well.</p>
            <p>Or, as the following modern Zen poem has it:</p>
            <div class="literallayout">
                <p>
                    <br />     To follow the path:
                    <br />     look to the master,
                    <br />     follow the master,
                    <br />     walk with the master,
                    <br />     see through the master,
                    <br />     become the master.
                    <br />
                </p>
            </div>
            <p>So, if you want to be a hacker, repeat the following things until you believe them:</p>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="believe1"></a>1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>Being a hacker is lots of fun, but it's a kind of fun that takes lots of effort. The effort takes motivation.
                    Successful athletes get their motivation from a kind of physical delight in making their bodies perform,
                    in pushing themselves past their own physical limits. Similarly, to be a hacker you have to get a basic
                    thrill from solving problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your intelligence.
                </p>
                <p>If you aren't the kind of person that feels this way naturally, you'll need to become one in order to make
                    it as a hacker. Otherwise you'll find your hacking energy is sapped by distractions like sex, money,
                    and social approval.</p>
                <p>(You also have to develop a kind of faith in your own learning capacity — a belief that even though you may
                    not know all of what you need to solve a problem, if you tackle just a piece of it and learn from that,
                    you'll learn enough to solve the next piece — and so on, until you're done.)</p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="believe2"></a>2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They shouldn't be wasted on re-inventing the wheel when
                    there are so many fascinating new problems waiting out there.</p>
                <p>To behave like a hacker, you have to believe that the thinking time of other hackers is precious — so much
                    so that it's almost a moral duty for you to share information, solve problems and then give the solutions
                    away just so other hackers can solve
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>new</em>
                    </span>
                    problems instead of having to perpetually re-address old ones.</p>
                <p>Note, however, that "No problem should ever have to be solved twice." does not imply that you have to consider
                    all existing solutions sacred, or that there is only one right solution to any given problem. Often,
                    we learn a lot about the problem that we didn't know before by studying the first cut at a solution.
                    It's OK, and often necessary, to decide that we can do better. What's not OK is artificial technical,
                    legal, or institutional barriers (like closed-source code) that prevent a good solution from being re-used
                    and
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>force</em>
                    </span> people to re-invent wheels.</p>
                <p>(You don't have to believe that you're obligated to give
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>all</em>
                    </span> your creative product away, though the hackers that do are the ones that get most respect from other
                    hackers. It's consistent with hacker values to sell enough of it to keep you in food and rent and computers.
                    It's fine to use your hacking skills to support a family or even get rich, as long as you don't forget
                    your loyalty to your art and your fellow hackers while doing it.)</p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="believe3"></a>3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>Hackers (and creative people in general) should never be bored or have to drudge at stupid repetitive work,
                    because when this happens it means they aren't doing what only they can do — solve new problems. This
                    wastefulness hurts everybody. Therefore boredom and drudgery are not just unpleasant but actually evil.</p>
                <p>To behave like a hacker, you have to believe this enough to want to automate away the boring bits as much
                    as possible, not just for yourself but for everybody else (especially other hackers).</p>
                <p>(There is one apparent exception to this. Hackers will sometimes do things that may seem repetitive or boring
                    to an observer as a mind-clearing exercise, or in order to acquire a skill or have some particular kind
                    of experience you can't have otherwise. But this is by choice — nobody who can think should ever be forced
                    into a situation that bores them.)</p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="believe4"></a>4. Freedom is good.</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>Hackers are naturally anti-authoritarian. Anyone who can give you orders can stop you from solving whatever
                    problem you're being fascinated by — and, given the way authoritarian minds work, will generally find
                    some appallingly stupid reason to do so. So the authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you
                    find it, lest it smother you and other hackers.</p>
                <p>(This isn't the same as fighting all authority. Children need to be guided and criminals restrained. A hacker
                    may agree to accept some kinds of authority in order to get something he wants more than the time he
                    spends following orders. But that's a limited, conscious bargain; the kind of personal surrender authoritarians
                    want is not on offer.)
                </p>
                <p>Authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy. And they distrust voluntary cooperation and information-sharing
                    — they only like ‘cooperation’ that they control. So to behave like a hacker, you have to develop an
                    instinctive hostility to censorship, secrecy, and the use of force or deception to compel responsible
                    adults. And you have to be willing to act on that belief.
                </p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="believe5"></a>5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>To be a hacker, you have to develop some of these attitudes. But copping an attitude alone won't make you
                    a hacker, any more than it will make you a champion athlete or a rock star. Becoming a hacker will take
                    intelligence, practice, dedication, and hard work.</p>
                <p>Therefore, you have to learn to distrust attitude and respect competence of every kind. Hackers won't let
                    posers waste their time, but they worship competence — especially competence at hacking, but competence
                    at anything is valued. Competence at demanding skills that few can master is especially good, and competence
                    at demanding skills that involve mental acuteness, craft, and concentration is best.</p>
                <p>If you revere competence, you'll enjoy developing it in yourself — the hard work and dedication will become
                    a kind of intense play rather than drudgery. That attitude is vital to becoming a hacker.
                </p>
            </div>
        </div>
        <div class="sect1">
            <div class="titlepage">
                <div>
                    <div>
                        <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
                            <a id="basic_skills"></a>Basic Hacking Skills</h2>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <div class="toc">
                <dl class="toc">
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#skills1">1. Learn how to program.</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#skills2">2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#skills3">3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#skills4">4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                </dl>
            </div>
            <p>The hacker attitude is vital, but skills are even more vital. Attitude is no substitute for competence, and there's
                a certain basic toolkit of skills which you have to have before any hacker will dream of calling you one.</p>
            <p>This toolkit changes slowly over time as technology creates new skills and makes old ones obsolete. For example,
                it used to include programming in machine language, and didn't until recently involve HTML. But right now
                it pretty clearly includes the following:</p>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="skills1"></a>1. Learn how to program.</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>This, of course, is the fundamental hacking skill. If you don't know any computer languages, I recommend
                    starting with Python. It is cleanly designed, well documented, and relatively kind to beginners. Despite
                    being a good first language, it is not just a toy; it is very powerful and flexible and well suited for
                    large projects. I have written a more detailed
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3882" target="_top">evaluation of Python
                    </a>. Good
                    <a class="ulink" href="https://www.python.org/about/gettingstarted/" target="_top"> tutorials</a> are available at the
                    <a class="ulink" href="https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/" target="_top">Python web site</a>; there's an excellent third-party one at
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://cscircles.cemc.uwaterloo.ca/" target="_top">Computer Science Circles
                    </a>.</p>
                <p>I used to recommend Java as a good language to learn early, but
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.crosstalkonline.org/storage/issue-archives/2008/200801/200801-Dewar.pdf" target="_top">this critique
                    </a> has changed my mind (search for
                    <span class="quote">“
                        <span class="quote">The Pitfalls of Java as a First Programming Language</span>”</span> within it). A hacker cannot,
                    as they devastatingly put it
                    <span class="quote">“
                        <span class="quote">approach problem-solving like a plumber in a hardware store</span>”</span>; you have to know what
                    the components actually
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>do</em>
                    </span>. Now I think it is probably best to learn C and Lisp first, then Java.</p>
                <p>There is perhaps a more general point here. If a language does too much for you, it may be simultaneously
                    a good tool for production and a bad one for learning. It's not only languages that have this problem;
                    web application frameworks like RubyOnRails, CakePHP, Django may make it too easy to reach a superficial
                    sort of understanding that will leave you without resources when you have to tackle a hard problem, or
                    even just debug the solution to an easy one.</p>
                <p>If you get into serious programming, you will have to learn C, the core language of Unix. C++ is very closely
                    related to C; if you know one, learning the other will not be difficult. Neither language is a good one
                    to try learning as your first, however. And, actually, the more you can avoid programming in C the more
                    productive you will be.
                </p>
                <p>C is very efficient, and very sparing of your machine's resources. Unfortunately, C gets that efficiency
                    by requiring you to do a lot of low-level management of resources (like memory) by hand. All that low-level
                    code is complex and bug-prone, and will soak up huge amounts of your time on debugging. With today's
                    machines as powerful as they are, this is usually a bad tradeoff — it's smarter to use a language that
                    uses the machine's time less efficiently, but your time much
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>more</em>
                    </span> efficiently. Thus, Python.</p>
                <p>Other languages of particular importance to hackers include
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.perl.com" target="_top">Perl</a> and
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.lisp.org/" target="_top">LISP</a>. Perl is worth learning for practical reasons; it's very widely used for active web pages and
                    system administration, so that even if you never write Perl you should learn to read it. Many people
                    use Perl in the way I suggest you should use Python, to avoid C programming on jobs that don't require
                    C's machine efficiency. You will need to be able to understand their code.</p>
                <p>LISP is worth learning for a different reason — the profound enlightenment experience you will have when
                    you finally get it. That experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even
                    if you never actually use LISP itself a lot. (You can get some beginning experience with LISP fairly
                    easily by writing and modifying editing modes for the Emacs text editor, or Script-Fu plugins for the
                    GIMP.)
                </p>
                <p>It's best, actually, to learn all five of Python, C/C++, Java, Perl, and LISP. Besides being the most important
                    hacking languages, they represent very different approaches to programming, and each will educate you
                    in valuable ways.</p>
                <p>But be aware that you won't reach the skill level of a hacker or even merely a programmer simply by accumulating
                    languages — you need to learn how to think about programming problems in a general way, independent of
                    any one language. To be a real hacker, you need to get to the point where you can learn a new language
                    in days by relating what's in the manual to what you already know. This means you should learn several
                    very different languages.</p>
                <p>I can't give complete instructions on how to learn to program here — it's a complex skill. But I can tell
                    you that books and courses won't do it — many, maybe
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>most</em>
                    </span> of the best hackers are self-taught. You can learn language features — bits of knowledge — from books,
                    but the mind-set that makes that knowledge into living skill can be learned only by practice and apprenticeship.
                    What will do it is (a)
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>reading code</em>
                    </span> and (b)
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>writing code</em>
                    </span>.</p>
                <p>Peter Norvig, who is one of Google's top hackers and the co-author of the most widely used textbook on AI,
                    has written an excellent essay called
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://norvig.com/21-days.html" target="_top">Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years</a>. His "recipe for programming success" is worth careful attention.</p>
                <p>Learning to program is like learning to write good natural language. The best way to do it is to read some
                    stuff written by masters of the form, write some things yourself, read a lot more, write a little more,
                    read a lot more, write some more ... and repeat until your writing begins to develop the kind of strength
                    and economy you see in your models.</p>
                <p>I have had more to say about this learning process in
                    <a class="ulink" href="hacking-howto.html" target="_top">How To Learn Hacking</a>. It's a simple set of instructions, but not an easy one.</p>
                <p>Finding good code to read used to be hard, because there were few large programs available in source for
                    fledgeling hackers to read and tinker with. This has changed dramatically; open-source software, programming
                    tools, and operating systems (all built by hackers) are now widely available. Which brings me neatly
                    to our next topic...</p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="skills2"></a>2. Get one of the open-source Unixes and learn to use and run it.</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>I'll assume you have a personal computer or can get access to one. (Take a moment to appreciate how much
                    that means. The hacker culture originally evolved back when computers were so expensive that individuals
                    could not own them.) The single most important step any newbie can take toward acquiring hacker skills
                    is to get a copy of Linux or one of the BSD-Unixes, install it on a personal machine, and run it.</p>
                <p>Yes, there are other operating systems in the world besides Unix. But they're distributed in binary — you
                    can't read the code, and you can't modify it. Trying to learn to hack on a Microsoft Windows machine
                    or under any other closed-source system is like trying to learn to dance while wearing a body cast.</p>
                <p>Under Mac OS X it's possible, but only part of the system is open source — you're likely to hit a lot of
                    walls, and you have to be careful not to develop the bad habit of depending on Apple's proprietary code.
                    If you concentrate on the Unix under the hood you can learn some useful things.</p>
                <p>Unix is the operating system of the Internet. While you can learn to use the Internet without knowing Unix,
                    you can't be an Internet hacker without understanding Unix. For this reason, the hacker culture today
                    is pretty strongly Unix-centered. (This wasn't always true, and some old-time hackers still aren't happy
                    about it, but the symbiosis between Unix and the Internet has become strong enough that even Microsoft's
                    muscle doesn't seem able to seriously dent it.)</p>
                <p>So, bring up a Unix — I like Linux myself but there are other ways (and yes, you
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>can</em>
                    </span> run both Linux and Microsoft Windows on the same machine). Learn it. Run it. Tinker with it. Talk to
                    the Internet with it. Read the code. Modify the code. You'll get better programming tools (including
                    C, LISP, Python, and Perl) than any Microsoft operating system can dream of hosting, you'll have fun,
                    and you'll soak up more knowledge than you realize you're learning until you look back on it as a master
                    hacker.
                </p>
                <p>For more about learning Unix, see
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/loginataka.html" target="_top">The Loginataka</a>. You might also want to have a look at
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/" target="_top">The Art Of Unix Programming</a>.</p>
                <p>The blog
                    <a class="ulink" href="https://letsgolarval.wordpress.com/" target="_top">Let's Go Larval!</a> is a window on the learning process of a new Linux user that I think is unusually
                    lucid and helpful. The post
                    <a class="ulink" href="https://letsgolarval.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/how-i-learned-linux/" target="_top">How I Learned Linux</a> makes a good starting point.</p>
                <p>To get your hands on a Linux, see the
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.linux.org/" target="_top">Linux Online!</a> site; you can download from there or (better idea) find a local Linux user group to
                    help you with installation.</p>
                <p>During the first ten years of this HOWTO's life, I reported that from a new user's point of view, all Linux
                    distributions are almost equivalent. But in 2006-2007, an actual best choice emerged:
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.ubuntu.com/" target="_top">Ubuntu</a>. While other distros have their own areas of strength, Ubuntu is far and away the most accessible
                    to Linux newbies. Beware, though, of the hideous and nigh-unusable "Unity" desktop interface that Ubuntu
                    introduced as a default a few years later; the Xubuntu or Kubuntu variants are better.
                </p>
                <p>You can find BSD Unix help and resources at
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.bsd.org" target="_top">www.bsd.org</a>.</p>
                <p>A good way to dip your toes in the water is to boot up what Linux fans call a
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.livecdnews.com/" target="_top">live CD
                    </a>, a distribution that runs entirely off a CD or USB stick without having to modify your hard disk.
                    This may be slow, because CDs are slow, but it's a way to get a look at the possibilities without having
                    to do anything drastic.</p>
                <p>I have written a primer on the
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Unix-and-Internet-Fundamentals-HOWTO/index.html" target="_top">basics of Unix and the Internet</a>.</p>
                <p>I used to recommend against installing either Linux or BSD as a solo project if you're a newbie. Nowadays
                    the installers have gotten good enough that doing it entirely on your own is possible, even for a newbie.
                    Nevertheless, I still recommend making contact with your local Linux user's group and asking for help.
                    It can't hurt, and may smooth the process.</p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="skills3"></a>3. Learn how to use the World Wide Web and write HTML.</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>Most of the things the hacker culture has built do their work out of sight, helping run factories and offices
                    and universities without any obvious impact on how non-hackers live. The Web is the one big exception,
                    the huge shiny hacker toy that even
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>politicians</em>
                    </span> admit has changed the world. For this reason alone (and a lot of other good ones as well) you need to
                    learn how to work the Web.</p>
                <p>This doesn't just mean learning how to drive a browser (anyone can do that), but learning how to write HTML,
                    the Web's markup language. If you don't know how to program, writing HTML will teach you some mental
                    habits that will help you learn. So build a home page.</p>
                <p>But just having a home page isn't anywhere near good enough to make you a hacker. The Web is full of home
                    pages. Most of them are pointless, zero-content sludge — very snazzy-looking sludge, mind you, but sludge
                    all the same (for more on this see
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://catb.org/~esr/html-hell.html" target="_top">The HTML Hell Page
                    </a>).</p>
                <p>To be worthwhile, your page must have
                    <span class="emphasis">
                        <em>content</em>
                    </span> — it must be interesting and/or useful to other hackers. And that brings us to the next topic...</p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="skills4"></a>4. If you don't have functional English, learn it.</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>As an American and native English-speaker myself, I have previously been reluctant to suggest this, lest
                    it be taken as a sort of cultural imperialism. But several native speakers of other languages have urged
                    me to point out that English is the working language of the hacker culture and the Internet, and that
                    you will need to know it to function in the hacker community.</p>
                <p>Back around 1991 I learned that many hackers who have English as a second language use it in technical discussions
                    even when they share a birth tongue; it was reported to me at the time that English has a richer technical
                    vocabulary than any other language and is therefore simply a better tool for the job. For similar reasons,
                    translations of technical books written in English are often unsatisfactory (when they get done at all).</p>
                <p>Linus Torvalds, a Finn, comments his code in English (it apparently never occurred to him to do otherwise).
                    His fluency in English has been an important factor in his ability to recruit a worldwide community of
                    developers for Linux. It's an example worth following.
                </p>
                <p>Being a native English-speaker does not guarantee that you have language skills good enough to function as
                    a hacker. If your writing is semi-literate, ungrammatical, and riddled with misspellings, many hackers
                    (including myself) will tend to ignore you. While sloppy writing does not invariably mean sloppy thinking,
                    we've generally found the correlation to be strong — and we have no use for sloppy thinkers. If you can't
                    yet write competently, learn to.</p>
            </div>
        </div>
        <div class="sect1">
            <div class="titlepage">
                <div>
                    <div>
                        <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
                            <a id="status"></a>Status in the Hacker Culture</h2>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <div class="toc">
                <dl class="toc">
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#respect1">1. Write open-source software</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#respect2">2. Help test and debug open-source software</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#respect3">3. Publish useful information</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#respect4">4. Help keep the infrastructure working</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>
                        <span class="sect2">
                            <a href="#respect5">5. Serve the hacker culture itself</a>
                        </span>
                    </dt>
                </dl>
            </div>
            <p>Like most cultures without a money economy, hackerdom runs on reputation. You're trying to solve interesting
                problems, but how interesting they are, and whether your solutions are really good, is something that only
                your technical peers or superiors are normally equipped to judge.</p>
            <p>Accordingly, when you play the hacker game, you learn to keep score primarily by what other hackers think of
                your skill (this is why you aren't really a hacker until other hackers consistently call you one). This fact
                is obscured by the image of hacking as solitary work; also by a hacker-cultural taboo (gradually decaying
                since the late 1990s but still potent) against admitting that ego or external validation are involved in
                one's motivation at all.</p>
            <p>Specifically, hackerdom is what anthropologists call a
                <span class="emphasis">
                    <em>gift culture
                    </em>
                </span>. You gain status and reputation in it not by dominating other people, nor by being beautiful, nor by having
                things other people want, but rather by giving things away. Specifically, by giving away your time, your
                creativity, and the results of your skill.
            </p>
            <p>There are basically five kinds of things you can do to be respected by hackers:
            </p>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="respect1"></a>1. Write open-source software</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>The first (the most central and most traditional) is to write programs that other hackers think are fun or
                    useful, and give the program sources away to the whole hacker culture to use.</p>
                <p>(We used to call these works “free software”, but this confused too many people who weren't sure exactly
                    what “free” was supposed to mean. Most of us now prefer the term “
                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.opensource.org/" target="_top">open-source</a>” software).
                </p>
                <p>Hackerdom's most revered demigods are people who have written large, capable programs that met a widespread
                    need and given them away, so that now everyone uses them.</p>
                <p>But there's a bit of a fine historical point here. While hackers have always looked up to the open-source
                    developers among them as our community's hardest core, before the mid-1990s most hackers most of the
                    time worked on closed source. This was still true when I wrote the first version of this HOWTO in 1996;
                    it took the mainstreaming of open-source software after 1997 to change things. Today, "the hacker community"
                    and "open-source developers" are two descriptions for what is essentially the same culture and population
                    — but it is worth remembering that this was not always so. (For more on this, see
                    <a class="xref" href="#history" title="Historical Note: Hacking, Open Source, and Free Software">the section called “Historical Note: Hacking, Open Source, and Free Software”</a>.)</p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="respect2"></a>2. Help test and debug open-source software</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>They also serve who stand and debug open-source software. In this imperfect world, we will inevitably spend
                    most of our software development time in the debugging phase. That's why any open-source author who's
                    thinking will tell you that good beta-testers (who know how to describe symptoms clearly, localize problems
                    well, can tolerate bugs in a quickie release, and are willing to apply a few simple diagnostic routines)
                    are worth their weight in rubies. Even one of these can make the difference between a debugging phase
                    that's a protracted, exhausting nightmare and one that's merely a salutary nuisance.
                </p>
                <p>If you're a newbie, try to find a program under development that you're interested in and be a good beta-tester.
                    There's a natural progression from helping test programs to helping debug them to helping modify them.
                    You'll learn a lot this way, and generate good karma with people who will help you later on.</p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="respect3"></a>3. Publish useful information</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>Another good thing is to collect and filter useful and interesting information into web pages or documents
                    like Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) lists, and make those generally available.
                </p>
                <p>Maintainers of major technical FAQs get almost as much respect as open-source authors.</p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="respect4"></a>4. Help keep the infrastructure working</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>The hacker culture (and the engineering development of the Internet, for that matter) is run by volunteers.
                    There's a lot of necessary but unglamorous work that needs done to keep it going — administering mailing
                    lists, moderating newsgroups, maintaining large software archive sites, developing RFCs and other technical
                    standards.
                </p>
                <p>People who do this sort of thing well get a lot of respect, because everybody knows these jobs are huge time
                    sinks and not as much fun as playing with code. Doing them shows dedication.</p>
            </div>
            <div class="sect2">
                <div class="titlepage">
                    <div>
                        <div>
                            <h3 class="title">
                                <a id="respect5"></a>5. Serve the hacker culture itself</h3>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </div>
                <p>Finally, you can serve and propagate the culture itself (by, for example, writing an accurate primer on how
                    to become a hacker :-)). This is not something you'll be positioned to do until you've been around for
                    while and become well-known for one of the first four things.
                </p>
                <p>The hacker culture doesn't have leaders, exactly, but it does have culture heroes and tribal elders and historians
                    and spokespeople. When you've been in the trenches long enough, you may grow into one of these. Beware:
                    hackers distrust blatant ego in their tribal elders, so visibly reaching for this kind of fame is dangerous.
                    Rather than striving for it, you have to sort of position yourself so it drops in your lap, and then
                    be modest and gracious about your status.</p>
            </div>
        </div>
        <div class="sect1">
            <div class="titlepage">
                <div>
                    <div>
                        <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
                            <a id="nerd_connection"></a>The Hacker/Nerd Connection</h2>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <p>Contrary to popular myth, you don't have to be a nerd to be a hacker. It does help, however, and many hackers
                are in fact nerds. Being something of a social outcast helps you stay concentrated on the really important
                things, like thinking and hacking.</p>
            <p>For this reason, many hackers have adopted the label ‘geek’ as a badge of pride — it's a way of declaring their
                independence from normal social expectations (as well as a fondness for other things like science fiction
                and strategy games that often go with being a hacker). The term 'nerd' used to be used this way back in the
                1990s, back when 'nerd' was a mild pejorative and 'geek' a rather harsher one; sometime after 2000 they switched
                places, at least in U.S. popular culture, and there is now even a significant geek-pride culture among people
                who aren't techies.</p>
            <p>If you can manage to concentrate enough on hacking to be good at it and still have a life, that's fine. This
                is a lot easier today than it was when I was a newbie in the 1970s; mainstream culture is much friendlier
                to techno-nerds now. There are even growing numbers of people who realize that hackers are often high-quality
                lover and spouse material.</p>
            <p>If you're attracted to hacking because you don't have a life, that's OK too — at least you won't have trouble
                concentrating. Maybe you'll get a life later on.</p>
        </div>
        <div class="sect1">
            <div class="titlepage">
                <div>
                    <div>
                        <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
                            <a id="style"></a>Points For Style</h2>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <p>Again, to be a hacker, you have to enter the hacker mindset. There are some things you can do when you're not
                at a computer that seem to help. They're not substitutes for hacking (nothing is) but many hackers do them,
                and feel that they connect in some basic way with the essence of hacking.</p>
            <a id="do_this"></a>
            <div class="itemizedlist">
                <ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p>Learn to write your native language well. Though it's a common stereotype that programmers can't
                            write, a surprising number of hackers (including all the most accomplished ones I know of) are
                            very able writers.</p>
                    </li>
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p>Read science fiction. Go to science fiction conventions (a good way to meet hackers and proto-hackers).
                        </p>
                    </li>
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p>Join a hackerspace and make things (another good way to meet hackers and proto-hackers).
                        </p>
                    </li>
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p>Train in a martial-arts form. The kind of mental discipline required for martial arts seems to be
                            similar in important ways to what hackers do. The most popular forms among hackers are definitely
                            Asian empty-hand arts such as Tae Kwon Do, various forms of Karate, Kung Fu, Aikido, or Ju Jitsu.
                            Western fencing and Asian sword arts also have visible followings. In places where it's legal,
                            pistol shooting has been rising in popularity since the late 1990s. The most hackerly martial
                            arts are those which emphasize mental discipline, relaxed awareness, and precise control, rather
                            than raw strength, athleticism, or physical toughness.
                        </p>
                    </li>
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p>Study an actual meditation discipline. The perennial favorite among hackers is Zen (importantly,
                            it is possible to benefit from Zen without acquiring a religion or discarding one you already
                            have). Other styles may work as well, but be careful to choose one that doesn't require you to
                            believe crazy things.
                        </p>
                    </li>
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p> Develop an analytical ear for music. Learn to appreciate peculiar kinds of music. Learn to play some
                            musical instrument well, or how to sing.</p>
                    </li>
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p> Develop your appreciation of puns and wordplay.
                        </p>
                    </li>
                </ul>
            </div>
            <p>The more of these things you already do, the more likely it is that you are natural hacker material. Why these
                things in particular is not completely clear, but they're connected with a mix of left- and right-brain skills
                that seems to be important; hackers need to be able to both reason logically and step outside the apparent
                logic of a problem at a moment's notice.</p>
            <p>Work as intensely as you play and play as intensely as you work. For true hackers, the boundaries between "play",
                "work", "science" and "art" all tend to disappear, or to merge into a high-level creative playfulness. Also,
                don't be content with a narrow range of skills. Though most hackers self-describe as programmers, they are
                very likely to be more than competent in several related skills — system administration, web design, and
                PC hardware troubleshooting are common ones. A hacker who's a system administrator, on the other hand, is
                likely to be quite skilled at script programming and web design. Hackers don't do things by halves; if they
                invest in a skill at all, they tend to get very good at it.</p>
            <p>
                <a id="not_to_do"></a>Finally, a few things
                <span class="emphasis">
                    <em>not</em>
                </span> to do.
            </p>
            <div class="itemizedlist">
                <ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p> Don't use a silly, grandiose user ID or screen name.
                        </p>
                    </li>
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p> Don't get in flame wars on Usenet (or anywhere else).
                        </p>
                    </li>
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p> Don't call yourself a ‘cyberpunk’, and don't waste your time on anybody who does.</p>
                    </li>
                    <li class="listitem">
                        <p> Don't post or email writing that's full of spelling errors and bad grammar.</p>
                    </li>
                </ul>
            </div>
            <p>The only reputation you'll make doing any of these things is as a twit. Hackers have long memories — it could
                take you years to live your early blunders down enough to be accepted.</p>
            <p>The problem with screen names or handles deserves some amplification. Concealing your identity behind a handle
                is a juvenile and silly behavior characteristic of crackers, warez d00dz, and other lower life forms. Hackers
                don't do this; they're proud of what they do and want it associated with their
                <span class="emphasis">
                    <em>real</em>
                </span> names. So if you have a handle, drop it. In the hacker culture it will only mark you as a loser.</p>
        </div>
        <div class="sect1">
            <div class="titlepage">
                <div>
                    <div>
                        <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
                            <a id="history"></a>Historical Note: Hacking, Open Source, and Free Software</h2>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <p>When I originally wrote this how-to in late 1996, some of the conditions around it were very different from the
                way they look today. A few words about these changes may help clarify matters for people who are confused
                about the relationship of open source, free software, and Linux to the hacker community. If you are not curious
                about this, you can skip straight to the FAQ and bibliography from here.
            </p>
            <p>The hacker ethos and community as I have described it here long predates the emergence of Linux after 1990; I
                first became involved with it around 1976, and, its roots are readily traceable back to the early 1960s.
                But before Linux, most hacking was done on either proprietary operating systems or a handful of quasi-experimental
                homegrown systems like MIT's ITS that were never deployed outside of their original academic niches. While
                there had been some earlier (pre-Linux) attempts to change this situation, their impact was at best very
                marginal and confined to communities of dedicated true believers which were tiny minorities even within the
                hacker community, let alone with respect to the larger world of software in general.
            </p>
            <p>What is now called "open source" goes back as far as the hacker community does, but until 1985 it was an unnamed
                folk practice rather than a conscious movement with theories and manifestos attached to it. This prehistory
                ended when, in 1985, arch-hacker Richard Stallman ("RMS") tried to give it a name — "free software". But
                his act of naming was also an act of claiming; he attached ideological baggage to the "free software" label
                which much of the existing hacker community never accepted. As a result, the "free software" label was loudly
                rejected by a substantial minority of the hacker community (especially among those associated with BSD Unix),
                and used with serious but silent reservations by a majority of the remainder (including myself).</p>
            <p>Despite these reservations, RMS's claim to define and lead the hacker community under the "free software" banner
                broadly held until the mid-1990s. It was seriously challenged only by the rise of Linux. Linux gave open-source
                development a natural home. Many projects issued under terms we would now call open-source migrated from
                proprietary Unixes to Linux. The community around Linux grew explosively, becoming far larger and more heterogenous
                than the pre-Linux hacker culture. RMS determinedly attempted to co-opt all this activity into his "free
                software" movement, but was thwarted by both the exploding diversity of the Linux community and the public
                skepticism of its founder, Linus Torvalds. Torvalds continued to use the term "free software" for lack of
                any alternative, but publicly rejected RMS's ideological baggage. Many younger hackers followed suit.
            </p>
            <p>In 1996, when I first published this Hacker HOWTO, the hacker community was rapidly reorganizing around Linux
                and a handful of other open-source operating systems (notably those descended from BSD Unix). Community memory
                of the fact that most of us had spent decades developing closed-source software on closed-source operating
                systems had not yet begun to fade, but that fact was already beginning to seem like part of a dead past;
                hackers were, increasingly, defining themselves as hackers by their attachments to open-source projects such
                as Linux or Apache.</p>
            <p>The term "open source", however, had not yet emerged; it would not do so until early 1998. When it did, most
                of the hacker community adopted it within the following six months; the exceptions were a minority ideologically
                attached to the term "free software". Since 1998, and especially after about 2003, the identification of
                'hacking' with 'open-source (and free software) development' has become extremely close. Today there is little
                point in attempting to distinguish between these categories, and it seems unlikely that will change in the
                future.</p>
            <p>It is worth remembering, however, that this was not always so.</p>
        </div>
        <div class="sect1">
            <div class="titlepage">
                <div>
                    <div>
                        <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
                            <a id="resources"></a>Other Resources</h2>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <p>Paul Graham has written an essay called
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html" target="_top">Great Hackers</a>, and another on
                <a class="ulink" href="http://www.paulgraham.com/college.html" target="_top">Undergraduation</a>, in which he speaks much wisdom.</p>
            <p>Younger hackers might find
                <a class="ulink" href="http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/things-every-hacker-once-knew" target="_top">Things Every Hacker Once Knew</a> interesting and useful.</p>
            <p>I have also written
                <a class="ulink" href="http://catb.org/~esr/writings/hacker-history/hacker-history.html" target="_top">
                    <em class="citetitle">A Brief History Of Hackerdom</em>
                </a>.</p>
            <p>I have written a paper,
                <a class="ulink" href="http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/index.html" target="_top">
                    <em class="citetitle">The Cathedral and the Bazaar</em>
                </a>, which explains a lot about how the Linux and open-source cultures work. I have addressed this topic even
                more directly in its sequel
                <a class="ulink" href="http://catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/" target="_top">
                    <em class="citetitle">Homesteading the Noosphere</em>
                </a>.</p>
            <p>Rick Moen has written an excellent document on
                <a class="ulink" href="http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Linux_PR/newlug.html" target="_top">how to run a Linux user group</a>.</p>
            <p>Rick Moen and I have collaborated on another document on
                <a class="ulink" href="http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html" target="_top">How To Ask Smart Questions</a>. This will help you seek assistance in a way that makes it more likely that
                you will actually get it.</p>
            <p>If you need instruction in the basics of how personal computers, Unix, and the Internet work, see
                <a class="ulink" href="http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO//Unix-and-Internet-Fundamentals-HOWTO/" target="_top">
                    The Unix and Internet Fundamentals HOWTO</a>.
            </p>
            <p>When you release software or write patches for software, try to follow the guidelines in the
                <a class="ulink" href="http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-Release-Practice-HOWTO/index.html" target="_top">
                    Software Release Practice HOWTO</a>.</p>
            <p>If you enjoyed the Zen poem, you might also like
                <a class="ulink" href="http://catb.org/~esr//writings/unix-koans" target="_top">Rootless Root: The Unix Koans of Master Foo</a>.</p>
        </div>
        <div class="sect1">
            <div class="titlepage">
                <div>
                    <div>
                        <h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
                            <a id="FAQ"></a>Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
                    </div>
                </div>
            </div>
            <div class="qandaset">
                <a id="idm45247967556016"></a>
                <dl>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#hacker_already">How do I tell if I am already a hacker?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#teach_hack">Will you teach me how to hack?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#getting_started">How can I get started, then?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#when_start">When do you have to start? Is it too late for me to learn?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#how_long">How long will it take me to learn to hack?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#closed_lang">Is Visual Basic a good language to start with?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#I_want_to_crack_and_Im_an_idiot">Would you help me to crack a system, or teach me how to crack?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#passwords">How can I get the password for someone else's account?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#crackmail">How can I break into/read/monitor someone else's email?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#crackop">How can I steal channel op privileges on IRC?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#anti_crack">I've been cracked. Will you help me fend off further attacks?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#windows_grief">I'm having problems with my Windows software. Will you help me?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#real_hackers">Where can I find some real hackers to talk with?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#books">Can you recommend useful books about hacking-related subjects?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#mathematics">Do I need to be good at math to become a hacker?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#language_first">What language should I learn first?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#hardware">What kind of hardware do I need?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#started2">I want to contribute. Can you help me pick a problem to work on?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#MS_hater">Do I need to hate and bash Microsoft?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#no_living">But won't open-source software leave programmers unable to make a living?</a>
                    </dt>
                    <dt>Q:
                        <a href="#problems">Where can I get a free Unix?</a>
                    </dt>
                </dl>
                <table border="0" style="width: 100%;">
                    <colgroup>
                        <col align="left" width="1%" />
                        <col />
                    </colgroup>
                    <tbody>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="hacker_already"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967555024"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>How do I tell if I am already a hacker?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Ask yourself the following three questions:</p>
                                <div class="itemizedlist">
                                    <ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
                                        <li class="listitem">
                                            <p>Do you speak code, fluently?</p>
                                        </li>
                                        <li class="listitem">
                                            <p>Do you identify with the goals and values of the hacker community?</p>
                                        </li>
                                        <li class="listitem">
                                            <p>Has a well-established member of the hacker community ever called you a hacker?</p>
                                        </li>
                                    </ul>
                                </div>
                                <p>If you can answer yes to
                                    <span class="emphasis">
                                        <em>all three</em>
                                    </span> of these questions, you are already a hacker. No two alone are sufficient.</p>
                                <p>The first test is about skills. You probably pass it if you have the minimum technical skills
                                    described earlier in this document. You blow right through it if you have had a substantial
                                    amount of code accepted by an open-source development project.</p>
                                <p>The second test is about attitude. If the
                                    <a class="link" href="#attitude" title="The Hacker Attitude">five principles of the hacker mindset</a> seemed obvious to you, more like a description
                                    of the way you already live than anything novel, you are already halfway to passing it.
                                    That's the inward half; the other, outward half is the degree to which you identify with
                                    the hacker community's long-term projects.</p>
                                <p>Here is an incomplete but indicative list of some of those projects: Does it matter to you
                                    that Linux improve and spread? Are you passionate about software freedom? Hostile to
                                    monopolies? Do you act on the belief that computers can be instruments of empowerment
                                    that make the world a richer and more humane place?</p>
                                <p>But a note of caution is in order here. The hacker community has some specific, primarily
                                    defensive political interests — two of them are defending free-speech rights and fending
                                    off "intellectual-property" power grabs that would make open source illegal. Some of
                                    those long-term projects are civil-liberties organizations like the Electronic Frontier
                                    Foundation, and the outward attitude properly includes support of them. But beyond that,
                                    most hackers view attempts to systematize the hacker attitude into an explicit political
                                    program with suspicion; we've learned, the hard way, that these attempts are divisive
                                    and distracting. If someone tries to recruit you to march on your capitol in the name
                                    of the hacker attitude, they've missed the point. The right response is probably
                                    <span class="quote">“
                                        <span class="quote">Shut up and show them the code.</span>”</span>
                                </p>
                                <p>The third test has a tricky element of recursiveness about it. I observed in
                                    <a class="xref" href="#what_is" title="What Is a Hacker?">the section called “What Is a Hacker?”</a> that being a hacker is partly a matter of
                                    belonging to a particular subculture or social network with a shared history, an inside
                                    and an outside. In the far past, hackers were a much less cohesive and self-aware group
                                    than they are today. But the importance of the social-network aspect has increased over
                                    the last thirty years as the Internet has made connections with the core of the hacker
                                    subculture easier to develop and maintain. One easy behavioral index of the change is
                                    that, in this century, we have our own T-shirts.</p>
                                <p>Sociologists, who study networks like those of the hacker culture under the general rubric
                                    of "invisible colleges", have noted that one characteristic of such networks is that
                                    they have gatekeepers — core members with the social authority to endorse new members
                                    into the network. Because the "invisible college" that is hacker culture is a loose and
                                    informal one, the role of gatekeeper is informal too. But one thing that all hackers
                                    understand in their bones is that not every hacker is a gatekeeper. Gatekeepers have
                                    to have a certain degree of seniority and accomplishment before they can bestow the title.
                                    How much is hard to quantify, but every hacker knows it when they see it.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="teach_hack"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967542368"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Will you teach me how to hack?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Since first publishing this page, I've gotten several requests a week (often several a day)
                                    from people to "teach me all about hacking". Unfortunately, I don't have the time or
                                    energy to do this; my own hacking projects, and working as an open-source advocate, take
                                    up 110% of my time.</p>
                                <p>Even if I did, hacking is an attitude and skill you basically have to teach yourself. You'll
                                    find that while real hackers want to help you, they won't respect you if you beg to be
                                    spoon-fed everything they know.
                                </p>
                                <p>Learn a few things first. Show that you're trying, that you're capable of learning on your
                                    own. Then go to the hackers you meet with specific questions.</p>
                                <p>If you do email a hacker asking for advice, here are two things to know up front. First,
                                    we've found that people who are lazy or careless in their writing are usually too lazy
                                    and careless in their thinking to make good hackers — so take care to spell correctly,
                                    and use good grammar and punctuation, otherwise you'll probably be ignored. Secondly,
                                    don't
                                    <span class="emphasis">
                                        <em>dare</em>
                                    </span> ask for a reply to an ISP account that's different from the account you're sending from;
                                    we find people who do that are usually thieves using stolen accounts, and we have no
                                    interest in rewarding or assisting thievery.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="getting_started"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967537360"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>How can I get started, then?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>The best way for you to get started would probably be to go to a LUG (Linux user group) meeting.
                                    You can find such groups on the
                                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.tldp.org/links/index.html" target="_top">LDP General Linux Information Page</a>; there is probably one near you, possibly associated
                                    with a college or university. LUG members will probably give you a Linux if you ask,
                                    and will certainly help you install one and get started.</p>
                                <p>Your next step (and your first step if you can't find a LUG nearby) should be to find an
                                    open-source project that interests you. Start reading code and reviewing bugs. Learn
                                    to contribute, and work your way in.</p>
                                <p>
                                    <span class="emphasis">
                                        <em>The only way in is by working to improve your skills.
                                        </em>
                                    </span> If you ask me personally for advice on how to get started, I will tell you these exact
                                    same things, because I don't have any magic shortcuts for you. I will also mentally write
                                    you off as a probable loser - because if you lacked the stamina to read this FAQ and
                                    the intelligence to understand from it that
                                    <span class="emphasis">
                                        <em>the only way in is by working to improve your skills</em>
                                    </span>, you're hopeless.
                                </p>
                                <p>Another interesting possibility is to go visit a hackerspace. There is a burgeoning movement
                                    of people creating physical locations - maker's clubs - where they can hang out to work
                                    on hardware and software projects together, or work solo in a cogenial atmosphere. Hackerspaces
                                    often collect tools and specialized equipment that would be too expensive or logistically
                                    inconvenient for individuals to own. Hackerspaces are easy to find on the Internet; one
                                    may be located near you.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="when_start"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967531392"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>When do you have to start? Is it too late for me to learn?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Any age at which you are motivated to start is a good age. Most people seem to get interested
                                    between ages 15 and 20, but I know of exceptions in both directions.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="how_long"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967529056"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>How long will it take me to learn to hack?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>That depends on how talented you are and how hard you work at it. Most people who try can
                                    acquire a respectable skill set in eighteen months to two years, if they concentrate.
                                    Don't think it ends there, though; in hacking (as in many other fields) it takes about
                                    ten years to achieve mastery. And if you are a real hacker, you will spend the rest of
                                    your life learning and perfecting your craft.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="closed_lang"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967526480"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Is Visual Basic a good language to start with?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>If you're asking this question, it almost certainly means you're thinking about trying to
                                    hack under Microsoft Windows. This is a bad idea in itself. When I compared trying to
                                    learn to hack under Windows to trying to learn to dance while wearing a body cast, I
                                    wasn't kidding. Don't go there. It's ugly, and it never stops being ugly.
                                </p>
                                <p>There is a specific problem with Visual Basic; mainly that it's not portable. Though there
                                    is a prototype open-source implementations of Visual Basic, the applicable ECMA standards
                                    don't cover more than a small set of its programming interfaces. On Windows most of its
                                    library support is proprietary to a single vendor (Microsoft); if you aren't
                                    <span class="emphasis">
                                        <em>extremely</em>
                                    </span>
                                    careful about which features you use — more careful than any newbie is really capable of being — you'll end up locked into
                                    only those platforms Microsoft chooses to support. If you're starting on a Unix, much
                                    better languages with better libraries are available. Python, for example.</p>
                                <p>Also, like other Basics, Visual Basic is a poorly-designed language that will teach you bad
                                    programming habits. No,
                                    <span class="emphasis">
                                        <em>don't</em>
                                    </span> ask me to describe them in detail; that explanation would fill a book. Learn a well-designed
                                    language instead.</p>
                                <p>One of those bad habits is becoming dependent on a single vendor's libraries, widgets, and
                                    development tools. In general, any language that isn't fully supported under at least
                                    Linux or one of the BSDs, and/or at least three different vendors' operating systems,
                                    is a poor one to learn to hack in.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="I_want_to_crack_and_Im_an_idiot"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967520800"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Would you help me to crack a system, or teach me how to crack?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>No. Anyone who can still ask such a question after reading this FAQ is too stupid to be educable
                                    even if I had the time for tutoring. Any emailed requests of this kind that I get will
                                    be ignored or answered with extreme rudeness.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="passwords"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967518320"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>How can I get the password for someone else's account?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>This is cracking. Go away, idiot.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="crackmail"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967516160"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>How can I break into/read/monitor someone else's email?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>This is cracking. Get lost, moron.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="crackop"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967514000"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>How can I steal channel op privileges on IRC?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>This is cracking. Begone, cretin.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="anti_crack"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967511840"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>I've been cracked. Will you help me fend off further attacks?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>No. Every time I've been asked this question so far, it's been from some poor sap running
                                    Microsoft Windows. It is not possible to effectively secure Windows systems against crack
                                    attacks; the code and architecture simply have too many flaws, which makes securing Windows
                                    like trying to bail out a boat with a sieve. The only reliable prevention starts with
                                    switching to Linux or some other operating system that is designed to at least be capable
                                    of security.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="windows_grief"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967509120"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>I'm having problems with my Windows software. Will you help me?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Yes. Go to a DOS prompt and type "format c:". Any problems you are experiencing will cease
                                    within a few minutes.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="real_hackers"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967506752"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Where can I find some real hackers to talk with?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>The best way is to find a Unix or Linux user's group local to you and go to their meetings
                                    (you can find links to several lists of user groups on the
                                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.tldp.org" target="_top">LDP</a> site at ibiblio).
                                </p>
                                <p>(I used to say here that you wouldn't find any real hackers on IRC, but I'm given to understand
                                    this is changing. Apparently some real hacker communities, attached to things like GIMP
                                    and Perl, have IRC channels now.)</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="books"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967503184"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Can you recommend useful books about hacking-related subjects?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>I maintain a
                                    <a class="ulink" href="http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Reading-List-HOWTO/index.html" target="_top">
                                        Linux Reading List HOWTO</a> that you may find helpful. The
                                    <a class="ulink" href="loginataka.html" target="_top">Loginataka</a> may also be interesting.</p>
                                <p>For an introduction to Python, see the
                                    <a class="ulink" href="http://docs.python.org/tutorial/index.html" target="_top">tutorial
                                    </a> on the Python site.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="mathematics"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967498688"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Do I need to be good at math to become a hacker?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>No. Hacking uses very little formal mathematics or arithmetic. In particular, you won't usually
                                    need trigonometry, calculus or analysis (there are exceptions to this in a handful of
                                    specific application areas like 3-D computer graphics). Knowing some formal logic and
                                    Boolean algebra is good. Some grounding in finite mathematics (including finite-set theory,
                                    combinatorics, and graph theory) can be helpful.
                                </p>
                                <p>Much more importantly: you need to be able to think logically and follow chains of exact
                                    reasoning, the way mathematicians do. While the content of most mathematics won't help
                                    you, you will need the discipline and intelligence to handle mathematics. If you lack
                                    the intelligence, there is little hope for you as a hacker; if you lack the discipline,
                                    you'd better grow it.</p>
                                <p>I think a good way to find out if you have what it takes is to pick up a copy of Raymond
                                    Smullyan's book
                                    <em class="citetitle">What Is The Name Of This Book?</em>. Smullyan's playful logical conundrums are very much
                                    in the hacker spirit. Being able to solve them is a good sign;
                                    <span class="emphasis">
                                        <em>enjoying</em>
                                    </span> solving them is an even better one.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="language_first"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967493920"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>What language should I learn first?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>HTML if you don't already know it. There are a lot of glossy, hype-intensive
                                    <span class="emphasis">
                                        <em>bad</em>
                                    </span>
                                    HTML books out there, and distressingly few good ones. The one I like best is
                                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/html5/" target="_top">
                                        <em class="citetitle">HTML: The Definitive Guide</em>
                                    </a>.</p>
                                <p>But HTML is not a full programming language. When you're ready to start programming, I would
                                    recommend starting with
                                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.python.org" target="_top">Python</a>. You will hear a lot of people recommending Perl, but it's harder to learn
                                    and (in my opinion) less well designed.</p>
                                <p>C is really important, but it's also much more difficult than either Python or Perl. Don't
                                    try to learn it first.</p>
                                <p>Windows users, do
                                    <span class="emphasis">
                                        <em>not</em>
                                    </span> settle for Visual Basic. It will teach you bad habits, and it's not portable off Windows.
                                    Avoid.
                                </p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="hardware"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967487776"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>What kind of hardware do I need?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>It used to be that personal computers were rather underpowered and memory-poor, enough so
                                    that they placed artificial limits on a hacker's learning process. This stopped being
                                    true in the mid-1990s; any machine from an Intel 486DX50 up is more than powerful enough
                                    for development work, X, and Internet communications, and the smallest disks you can
                                    buy today are plenty big enough.</p>
                                <p>The important thing in choosing a machine on which to learn is whether its hardware is Linux-compatible
                                    (or BSD-compatible, should you choose to go that route). Again, this will be true for
                                    almost all modern machines. The only really sticky areas are modems and wireless cards;
                                    some machines have Windows-specific hardware that won't work with Linux.</p>
                                <p>There's a FAQ on hardware compatibility; the latest version is
                                    <a class="ulink" href="http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/index.html" target="_top">
                                        here</a>.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="started2"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967482992"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>I want to contribute. Can you help me pick a problem to work on?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>No, because I don't know your talents or interests. You have to be self-motivated or you
                                    won't stick, which is why having other people choose your direction almost never works.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="MS_hater"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967480560"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Do I need to hate and bash Microsoft?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>No, you don't. Not that Microsoft isn't loathsome, but there was a hacker culture long before
                                    Microsoft and there will still be one long after Microsoft is history. Any energy you
                                    spend hating Microsoft would be better spent on loving your craft. Write good code —
                                    that will bash Microsoft quite sufficiently without polluting your karma.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="no_living"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967478016"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>But won't open-source software leave programmers unable to make a living?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>This seems unlikely — so far, the open-source software industry seems to be creating jobs
                                    rather than taking them away. If having a program written is a net economic gain over
                                    not having it written, a programmer will get paid whether or not the program is going
                                    to be open-source after it's done. And, no matter how much "free" software gets written,
                                    there always seems to be more demand for new and customized applications. I've written
                                    more about this at the
                                    <a class="ulink" href="http://www.opensource.org" target="_top">Open Source</a>
                                    pages.</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="question">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <a id="problems"></a>
                                <a id="idm45247967474656"></a>
                                <p>
                                    <strong>Q:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>Where can I get a free Unix?</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr class="answer">
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>
                                    <strong>A:</strong>
                                </p>
                            </td>
                            <td align="left" valign="top">
                                <p>If you don't have a Unix installed on your machine yet, elsewhere on this page I include
                                    pointers to where to get the most commonly used free Unix. To be a hacker you need motivation
                                    and initiative and the ability to educate yourself. Start now...</p>
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                    </tbody>
                </table>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
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